An Inside Look at McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2011

Editor’s note: Today, 40Tech is pleased to present you with a guest post from Derek Zhuang, who takes a look at McAfee AntiVirus Plus. I haven’t used a McAfee product for years, so I was interested to hear if it had changed from what I remember. I know that some of you uber tech geeks out there aren’t McAfee and Norton fans. We keep an open mind here at 40Tech, though, so we were interested to see what someone had to say about the current incarnation of McAfee’s product. — Evan Kline

The spanking new McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2011 is an upgraded version of the 2010 McAfee VirusScan Plus. There is, of course, more than just the cursory name change. The McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2011 comes with a number of extra protection features and a fresh interface, which makes the streamlining of complex, virus-protection tools easy.

Powerful Malware Blocking

Alarmingly common and more damaging than one could imagine, malware, can be every PC user’s bane. The McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2011 offers effective malware protection. The SiteAdvisor does a great job when it comes to blocking malicious and harmful websites.

The toolbar comes with a firewall, which further keeps harmful sites at bay. The software is equipped with remote management facility, while secure deletion ensures that bits of malware are not left behind to harm your computer when you aren’t looking; the QuickClean module deletes unimportant files and ensures that browsing traces are erased.

Great interface design

McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2011 comes in an extraordinary top-down design, which, despite being unusual is also extremely user-friendly. All the features are clearly demarcated, so that users know where to click for specific issues. Tabs that could have been branded with confusing names have been kept simple and interesting color coding actually makes it a delight to use.

The categorization below the status bar makes it easy for the user to explore his security status and ensure that his PC is well-protected. Further subcategories are provided at the bottom, which reveal their respective status, when the user rolls the mouse or cursor over them.

In addition, categorization is a non-issue here. For instance, because firewalls settings control web access, they are categorized neatly under ‘Web and Email Protection’.

Scale of protection

Asan antivirus solution,McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2011 is complete in every sense of the word. It protects users from a wide range of harmful elements including the seemingly inexhaustible viruses and worms, destructive Trojans and rootkits that access the user’s computer freely. That’s not all though- the software can also protect users from threats like phishing scams, which are increasingly common these days; hackers, malicious scripts, dialers and others of the ilk are also kept at bay.

McAfee AntiVirus also happens to be the sole antivirus software to come with a two-way firewall. What this essentially means is that the program protects the user’s computer from threats – irrespective of where they originate from; be it malicious websites, downloads, online scams and file-sharing, through both email and IM.

Semi-automatic

One of the most useful qualities of this software is also that it does not depend on maintenance by the user. The McAfee AntiVirus Plus is built in such a way, that once set-up, it continues to offer real-time protection, even as users browse the Web.

And, since everyone hates pop-ups, this last point could be deemed a plus too – the software is overall quite non-intrusive and pop-up alerts do appear, but the notifications can be turned when deemed unimportant.

Overall, the McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2011 offers PC users the protection they need, coupled with a number of nifty and user-friendly features.

This article was contributed by Derek Zhuang. Derek is a California based publisher of http://www.dailydeals4you.com which provides product reviews and coupon codes for popular antivirus software such as McAfee coupons, Bitdefender coupons, Norton coupons, Kaspersky coupons and so on.

4 Comments:

A shiny new interface is all well and good, but what we really need to know is how effective the product is in comparison to others. What’s the success rate for detection? What is the load on the PC?

Personally I am a big Kaspersky fan, especially with the management features for the big corporate environment. I haven’t used/checked McAfee in a few years but I am always keen to read technical evaluations and comparisons as these products are continually evolving.